Immortal

by Christopher Golden

  Joyce stared back down at her Updike book.

  Now, where was I?

  In the morning, Joyce overslept — a rarity for her — and Buffy had already left for school. Joyce was disappointed. Some part of her had needed to hear Buffy wish her good luck, maybe even favor her with a rare hug. Instead, she got dressed and drove herself to the medical building, assessing her various aches and pains to see if they were worth mentioning. Her ex-husband used to tease her about having “TV Hospital Disease” every time she saw a doctor about anything: on TV, it was usually the one strange little symptom the patients forgot to mention that resulted in their nearly dying. If only they’d remembered first thing that they had a little bump on the end of their ear lobe, or that their shoulders ached, but now it was too late . . . or very nearly so.

  Except for missing the chance to talk to Buffy, the morning was just as Joyce imagined it: sitting forever in the waiting room, reading old fashion magazines. They contained an endless number of questionnaires, which she eventually filled out because she had already read all the articles. She discovered she had a spicy personality and that her dominant personality trait was “nurturant-aggressive.”

  That’s what comes of being a single parent, she thought wryly.

  And then the nurse was at the door to the waiting room, calling her name with brisk efficiency. Joyce got to her feet, the magazine sliding off her lap, and she smiled nervously as she caught it.

  As they walked back to the scale beside the bathroom, the nurse asked her in a loud voice about her symptoms. How much blood? How often? Was she feeling especially tired? Did she smoke? Did she consider herself an alcoholic?

  Joyce blanched at the woman’s obvious lack of sensitivity and made a mental note to discuss it with the doctor. Then she decided she’d wait until another time. The nurse was not the topic of discussion here. Joyce was.

  They went into an examining room. Joyce sat down in a hard plastic chair, and the nurse took her blood pressure. “Very good,” she said, as if praising a little child. Then she picked up her papers and added, in as impersonal a tone as seemed humanly possible, “Doctor will be in in a moment.”

  Joyce looked around for something else to read.

  At school, Buffy stared at the clock. Willow watched her. She smiled when Buffy glanced at her, and Buffy made a little face. Willow’s smile faded. When the bell rang, she immediately went over to Buffy.

  “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  Buffy walked slowly down the hall. “My mom. Something’s wrong with her.” She moved her shoulders. “At least, I think something is. She coughed up blood.”

  Her face felt hot, as if she were telling Willow something that she shouldn’t. She didn’t understand her reaction, but it was strong.

  “Oh.” Willow looked worried. Then she looked as if she knew she looked worried. She tilted her head slightly, contemplatively. “It could be her tonsils. Does she still have them?”

  Buffy raised her brows. “No clue. Do you know if your mother does?”

  “Oh, yes,” Willow assured her. “She thought having them taken out was just one more example of the overly aggressive medical establishment finding a quick way to make a buck. She also didn’t want to immunize me against anything.”

  Buffy’s brows rose higher. “But then you couldn’t go to school.”

  “Oh, yes. In California, you can. If you say it’s for religious reasons.” Willow smiled. “But my dad insisted. So I’ve had all my shots.”

  “Wow.” Buffy was impressed. “My parents didn’t even think about it. They just did it.”

  “Well, you know my mom.” Willow rolled her eyes. “Everything’s a study.”

  “She’s big on the research,” Buffy agreed. “She and Giles would make a good cou-. . . not going there.”

  “Nowhere near there,” Willow agreed. Then she frowned suddenly and started away from Buffy. “Hold on a second, okay?”

  “Uh, sure,” Buffy said.

  Willow strode down the hall toward a dark, tall girl dressed in an outrageous orange mohair sweater and matching fuzzy skirt. She stood in front of an open locker, head bent, crying silently. Mainly because of the tears, it took Buffy a moment to realize the girl was Damara Johnson, whom Willow had tutored briefly during their sophomore year. As Buffy watched, Willow and the girl spoke quietly to each other.

  Buffy almost didn’t notice as Cordelia came up to stand beside her.

  “What is Willow doing talking to that fashion catastrophe?” Cordelia asked snippily. “Oh, wait, forgot. You people just don’t have the standards I do.”

  Cordelia’s attitude was no surprise to Buffy. She’d learned to expect that sort of thing, not to mention that Cordelia and Damara weren’t exactly compatible. Damara shopped almost exclusively at Buffalo Nickel, the vintage clothing store frequented by the arty types who weren’t into black berets and coffee houses. Cordelia wouldn’t have been caught dead inside that store.

  Buffy ignored her. A moment later, Willow gestured for her to approach, and Buffy did. Cordelia tagged along.

  “I swear, it was her roommate, but she looked all weird,” Damara was saying as they walked up. “I mean, really, really hideous.” Damara wiped her eyes. “And I kept thinking, what if Tanisa didn’t get on that bus to Brea? What if Pepper did something to her, and she’s making us all think Tanisa is okay?”

  “Are you on drugs?” Cordelia asked bluntly. “Because if you are, we really don’t have time to take care of your hallucinations.”

  “Who’s Pepper?” Buffy asked.

  “My sister’s roommate,” Damara explained. “Well, she was, but then she disappeared. And Tanisa moved, and now . . . I’m so confused.”

  “You think something’s happened to Tanisa?” Buffy asked.

  “I don’t know.” Damara wiped her eyes. “But Pepper came by last night and stared in the window. And she looked . . .” She moved her hands. “She looked like she should be in a horror movie. Like a gremlin or something.”

  “Oh, yeah, gremlins. Can we go now?” Cordelia sneered.

  Buffy peered at Cordelia, who stared blankly back. Then Cordy said, “Oo-ohh.”

  “Damara, would you mind coming with us?” Buffy asked. “I think Mr. Giles might like to hear your story.”

  “The school librarian?” Damara asked, clearly confused.

  “He really cares about all the kids,” Willow added, taking Damara’s elbow. “He’ll want to help you with this . . . story.”

  Buffy and Cordelia walked behind the other two girls, herding them gently toward the library.

  Buffy came home a little later than she’d planned. Giles had been most keen to ruminate on Damara’s story, and then he got really hepped up when Willow located the missing person’s report on Pepper Roback. He wanted to go over it and speculate and discuss it for, oh, at least another hour or so, but Buffy slipped out during a lull — or was that when Xander nodded off and started snoring?— and got home as fast as she could.

  “Mom?” she called.

  Joyce was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a platter of pork chops. She smiled at Buffy and said, “How was your day?”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  Her mom scrunched up her nose. “Doctors. Do they ever say anything? He ordered a chest X ray. I’ll go in for that tomorrow.”

  “Why? What’s it for?” Buffy demanded.

  “They want to see what’s going on in there,” Joyce said, as nonchalantly as possible. “It may be nothing, but . . .” She trailed off. “They just need to see.”

  Buffy was frustrated. She had waited and worried all day. This . . . this is bogus, she thought.

  “But didn’t he give you any kind of indication about what might be going on?”

  “He said we should wait for the X ray.” Joyce wiped her hands on a dish towel. “I have a meeting at the gallery in fifteen minutes, so I have to scoot. Save me some applesauce?”

  “Mom, you shouldn’t go out. You hav
en’t been feeling good.”

  “I feel much better,” Joyce said. “It’s about installing the exhibit, and I have to be there.” She smiled at Buffy and picked up her coat and purse. “Are you going out later?”

  “I guess.” She looked down at the pork chops and then at her mother’s retreating back. “Mom?”

  Her mother either didn’t hear her or chose not to answer. In either case, she walked past the window to the car, got in, and drove away.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Buffy was on the phone to Willow, who was more than happy to do a quick Net search for information on X-ray technology, the reasons for its usage, and how that might connect with someone who was coughing up blood. After about five minutes on the Net, Willow reported back.

  “They may be looking for, um, a mass,” Willow said.

  “Mass?” Buffy frowned. “English, please?”

  Willow took a minute to reply. “Oh, like a cyst.”

  “Oh.” Buffy’s stomach flip-flopped. Willow wasn’t coming clean. She’s so terrible at lying. Or not telling the truth. Which were, Buffy reflected, sometimes two different things.

  “Buffy, don’t worry, okay?” Willow said. “Just don’t worry.”

  “All right.” Buffy frowned.

  They both pretended not to know she was lying.

  Chapter Four

  At dusk that day, the darkness seemed to spread very quickly, traveling across the sky, slipping through the streets and avenues of Sunnydale with a kind of gleeful anticipation, as if it knew, somehow, what was to come. Evening flowed across the town as though it conspired with those creatures that could not come out by light of day. And why should it not? Vampires, demons, goblins, and ghouls, they were the champions of the darkness, after all.

  After dark, many of Sunnydale’s residents made it a habit to stay indoors. They were just homebodies, they told themselves and others. Fogies. They watched television or played cards or read books. If they did go out, it was likely to be a trip to the mall or the movies in the car. Californians loved their cars, but none so much as the people of Sunnydale.

  There were, however, a great many people who braved the night, not allowing even their subconscious minds to recognize that there was a real, tangible foundation for the little tingle of anxiety or fear they felt. But even those hardy souls, the young and the stubborn, for the most part, stayed to the well-lighted areas, or where they might find groups of people. Nightclubs and bars and restaurants. The busy downtown strip with its trendy shops and the Sun Cinema. Sporting events. The point, where young couples parked almost nightly.

  Conversely, there were certain areas of the town that were almost completely deserted after dark. The warehouses near the docks. The parks. And the two-block stretch some people still called Old Town. Once upon a time, it had been a bustling, trendy little strip, similar to that which now existed only a quarter of a mile away. But that had been a very long time ago, before earthquakes had undermined the foundations of half a dozen buildings, weakening their foundations enough that eventually the town was forced to condemn them. Abandon them. Every year, there was talk of a major renovation of the area, of destroying the buildings and constructing something new and wondrous in their place.

  But for the moment, they stood empty, crumbling, unsafe. The perfect refuge for runaways and drug dealers, and several of the buildings did have illegal squatters living within. Until recently, the former police headquarters had been a popular place to crash for those who existed on the fringes of society. Not anymore.

  Nothing lived inside that shadowy, condemned structure. But it was, nevertheless, quite inhabited. And those unfortunate enough to have been inside the building when its current inhabitants arrived now lay in the basement, stacked against a wall like so much cordwood.

  Rotting.

  For when the hatchlings were born into this world, they would not desire fresh meat.

  In the silence of dusk, only Veronique and Ephialtes dared wander the halls. The others were new and, as such, victim to the images of their kind made familiar by modern entertainment. It would take them time to realize that an errant ray of diffuse sunlight, as it slipped beyond the horizon, would not kill them instantly. To understand that they could look out upon the arrival of dusk, the last lingering efforts of the perpetually dying sun, and taste the coming of night and all the things that darkness would bring.

  For the moment, Veronique was pleased that her new brood remained in the dark recesses of internal offices, sleeping under desks and in closets. The quiet was bliss to her. Particularly in that it was a good-bye of sorts.

  “The last time night will ever fall for me,” Ephialtes whispered beside her.

  Veronique turned to look at him, becoming accustomed, now, to the new body she wore, the flesh of Pepper Roback, with her flaming red hair and tiny shape. She could see in Ephialtes’s expression that he admired this new body.

  She leaned in and kissed him gently on his darkly stubbled cheek. “Yes, my dear one. But your memory will burn forever in the fires of the new Hell that your life will bring.”

  He had nothing to say to that. Ephialtes returned her kiss and then merely stood with her, there in the huge open foyer of the old police station. The desks had been moved, stacked against a far wall. The room was large enough for their purposes, and they could sleep upstairs. And off to one side, of course, within a large office, there was the nest.

  “You are the eldest of my descendants,” Veronique reminded him, for Ephialtes had been sired by Belasarius, her spawn, who in his turn had been staked by a Slayer in A.D. 1011. She had no doubt that others of her blood roamed the world, but the Triumvirate had chosen Ephialtes to aid her.

  “The Triumvirate smiles upon you tonight,” she whispered to him.

  “I will be with you, within you, when your sharpened fangs stab the throat of the last man, my love, dark Harbinger, when the blood spurts into your mouth, dripping thickly down your throat. I will be with you there, won’t I?” Ephialtes asked.

  Veronique smiled. A rare sight. “You will live in my blood.”

  “Let us wake the others, then,” he replied grimly, determination etched on his features.

  Veronique glanced out through the gap between two large boards. She could see another dilapidated building across the street and the road below. Cars drove by from time to time, their lights splashing over the face of the building. But the later the hour, the fewer vehicles went by.

  “No need to wake us.”

  Ephialtes and his mistress both turned to see that the others had begun to gather in the gloom behind them. Konstantin was the one who had spoken, and now he stepped forward and knelt before Veronique.

  “We abase ourselves before you, Harbinger,” he said, but he did not lower his eyes. Instead, he stared at her.

  “Is there something on your mind, Konstantin?” she asked angrily.

  Finally, he dropped his gaze. “No, mistress,” he said. “I was only . . . looking at your eyes.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  Konstantin looked up. Once again, it seemed as though he wished to look away but was unable. “You are not the same, Veronique, and yet you are. Still the Harbinger inside this new body. I am the demon within, yet I am still Konstantin, in many ways. But you . . . change completely, and yet your eyes do not change.”

  “My nature has been explained to you, Konstantin.”

  Ephialtes turned toward Veronique then and smiled. “It is one thing to be told something, Harbinger, and something else entirely to understand it. Seeing you struck down only to rise again in this new form reminds the rest of us that though we are so much more than human, we yet suffer from some of their frailties. You do not. You are truly immortal.”

  Veronique glared at him. “Would that it were true,” she whispered thoughtfully. “But nothing is truly immortal save evil itself.”

  At that, they all fell silent in momentary contemplation. Beyond Konstantin, the four she had thus far gathered
looked at her in awe and adoration, amazed by the truth of her eternal nature, her demon soul residing within Pepper Roback’s corpse. Newborns, Veronique thought dismissively. They were such fools. But the ritual could not be conducted without them.

  “What are you all waiting for? You know how vital this evening is to the fulfillment of our goal, to the future of our kind.

  “Prepare the way,” she snapped.

  The vampires scattered. Save for Ephialtes. As the others went about their business, setting candles at intervals throughout the room, drawing the appropriate symbols within and around the wide circle she had chalked onto the floor the night before, Veronique watched them, checking each one. It must all be perfect for the spell to work.

  It had taken several hours to prepare, but all was now in readiness. Veronique looked upon Ephialtes, her descendant, who even now stood proudly, unwaveringly. He was at the edge of the circle, the others hovering around him, tending to him as best they could. In their eyes, Veronique could see the conflicting emotions within each of them. Jealousy, that Ephialtes should receive such an honor. Respect, that he should face it with such fortitude. Relief, that they would live to hunt another night and feel the spray of warm blood in their mouths. They were new to it, these babes, but the demons in them were ancient things, and the lust for murder and the hunger for the flow of life were strong within them from the moment they rose.

  No, none among them would have willingly chosen to take Ephialtes’s place in the ritual. In the sacrifice. But they knew what an honor he was about to receive, just the same.

  After all, what they were about to do, the unnatural horror that was about to befall Ephialtes, was something that this world had never seen. In a world rife with decadence, prurience, and cruelty, both human and inhuman, Veronique was sublimely pleased to be introducing to the world an entirely new perversion.

  Perhaps several.

  For a moment longer, she admired the way Ephialtes looked, simply standing there. The others had painted his body with symbols to match those on the floor. Painted his flesh with their own blood. He stood naked, adorned with those bloody runes and scrawls, his olive skin rippling with the power of the body, the engine beneath.